Charmaine Jefferson, Executive Director of the California African American Museum. Charmaine Jefferson is a native Angelino with a varied arts and entertainment career that first included 8 years as a professional concert dancer before she turned to law and arts administration. As a grant maker she served 6 years as senior dance program specialist and site visit coordinator for the National Endowment for the Arts. In the corporate world she worked as a civil litigator for the law firm of Holland and Knight; as a corporate director for Just Toys, Inc.; as vice president of business affairs for de Passe Entertainment; and, as director of show development for Disney Entertainment Productions. However, Charmaine’s strongest passions have always been for the arts, culture and public service. She served 6 years as deputy and acting commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs where she co-managed the agency through significant city budget cuts, an expanded capital construction program ($49.7M), a public relations initiative, and the installation of arts education programs for children living in temporary housing. She served 6 years as executive director of Dance Theatre of Harlem helping that institution’s capital expansion ($7.8M), company national and international tours, school operations, fundraising, marketing and board relations.

Charmaine recently completed 11 years of dual service as the executive director of the state-agency California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles and vice president of its nonprofit partner Friends, the Foundation of the California African American Museum. She helmed through schematics a $60M capital expansion plan; and fostered relationships with community-based organizations to create programming opportunities, and local and national museums to share exhibits. During her tenure, in spite of significant state budget cuts caused by the recession, exhibit presentations rose from 6 to 13 annually.

Francine E. Ott, a native of New Orleans, received her B.F.A in Dance from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and has had the pleasure of studying with many artists that she admires. She has worked and danced with Camille A. Brown and Dancers, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company, among others.  She has had the privilege of teaching many workshops, classes, and residencies---as well as being able to showcase her choreography.  Francine has received her Masters degree in Mental Health Counseling at Nyack College, and is currently a Dance Lecturer and Director of Panoramic Dance Project at North Carolina State University.  Ms. Ott has her own company, Francine E. Ott/The Walk, where she integrates mental health with dance and other art forms, allowing one to further their creativity through a unique therapeutic process---providing a space for growth, healing, change, and transformation in one's life.

Maria Bauman is a two-time Bessie Award winning multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. She is also a sought after public speaker and facilitator on race equity and community-building as and with arts. Her company MBDance's community engagement and performance-rituals particularly center Black Queer people without tragedizing or tokenizing us. Bauman is also co-founder in 2014, with Sarita Covington and Nathan Trice, of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), a grassroots organizing body of artists dismantling racism in our own practices and institutionally fields.

In 2021, Bauman was a BRIClab Fellow, granted a Petronio Residency Center award and a Red Tail Arts Fellow. She was a 2020 Columbia College Dance Center Practitioner-in-Residence, 2019 Gibney Dance in Process residency award winner, 2018-20 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, 2017-19 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and was the 2017 Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney. She's been recognized by Dance NYC's Dance Advancement Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council and Jerome Foundation. While formal accolades are affirming, some of the best approval Bauman has gotten for her dance work was from a group of Black and Brown queer teenagers at camp in Connecticut who, upon seeing her dance exclaimed "Oooo, she bad!”

Key areas: Concert dance & choreography; undoing racism in the arts & beyond; intentional dialogue facilitation; entering, building & exiting community methodology

Photo credit: Felicita "Felli" Maynard

www.mbdance.net

Marlies Yearby is an artist activist, Deep Body Listener, choreographer and director with a global perspective. She creates original works across various platforms including theater, film and diverse multimedia. Ms. Yearby developed her “In Our Bones Creative Process”  as an acknowledgement of the legacies, lived experiences, memories, and day to day energies ever present in the moving bodies at work.  Her approach to wholeness as a “Deep Body Listener” has engaged her techniques to move the stories and memories, held in the body, released into song, dance, voicing,  gesture and script. The process empowers participants to own their life experiences.  Ms. Yearby’s work is internationally recognized. She is the Tony award nominated and choreographer of the musical RENT and she received the Drama League Award for the Los Angeles production of RENT. Currently Ms Yearby is using her newest project Seed Awakening On The Eve Of Blue addressing the crisis in real food, environment and health as a commodity in disenfranchised communities globally and right here at home.

MK Abadoo (she/they) has been engaged in active Zen Buddhist training since 2009 with the Mountains and Rivers Order, where from 2012 until 2020 she was a former student of Shugen Roshi, and is currently a retreat teacher. Throughout this time they've complemented their Zen training by practicing with People of Color (POC) communities within the Insight Meditation Society, attending annual POC retreats lead by teachers such as Dara Williams, Gina Sharpe, Bonnie Duran, Bhante Buddharakkhita, Devin Berry, Kamala Masters and Jaya Rudgard among others. She is currently an active member of the Still Breathing Zen Sangha, an all Black women Zen community led by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho.

Abadoo's creative work exist at the crux of dance theater, anti-racist cultural organizing, and critical education studies. Considered a “rising star” by Dance Magazine, they craft dance events that combine Africanist, funky/family kitchen dances, and post-modern movement vocabularies with site activating audience and community engagement. MK’s creative practice is rooted in the justice work of Angela’s Pulse, Urban Bush Women, Gesel Mason Performance Projects and the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, where she is a trainer in Undoing Racism® and Community Organizing. Abadoo is also an assistant professor in the Department of Dance + Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), and in the Racial Equity, Arts, and Culture Core of VCU’s ICubed, the Institute for Inclusion, Inquiry & Innovation.

Mrs. Green holds a BA in Public Policy and a minor in Drama from Duke University and an MS in Arts Administration from Drexel University. She began her arts administration training at the Durham Arts Council and furthered her experience working for the American Dance Festival. She was managing director of the Chuck Davis African-American Dance Ensemble (1985-1989) and Director of Touring and Presenting for the NC Arts Council (1989-1992).

In 1992, she founded PMG Arts Management, providing booking, management, producing and consulting services to well-established and emerging artists, including the renowned Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Philadanco!, Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, and Grammy nominated vocalist Nnenna Freelon’s The Clothesline Muse, among others.

Mrs. Green has served as a board member, consultant, panelist, or workshop leader for the NEA, APAP, NEFA, NAPAMA, the Southern Arts Federation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Michigan Council for the Arts, and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. She currently serves on the Western Arts Alliance board, where she co-chairs the Black Arts@ WAA committee, and the Duke Performances Advisory Board.

http://pmgartsmgt.com/?page_id=293

Shawn René Graham, Deputy Director, Programs and Services, is a freelance writer and dramaturg from San Jose, California who has worked with many writers including Dennis Allen, France-Luce Benson, Nilo Cruz, Steve Harper, Walter Mosley, Lynn Nottage, Paul Rudnick, Susan Sontag, Dominic A. Taylor, Judy Tate, and Cori Thomas. She has been a guest dramaturg at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Crossroads Theatre Company's Genesis Festival, the New Professional Theatre, and African American Women's New Play Festival; and has served on many panels including the National Endowments for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grants Panel in Playwriting, and the Mark Taper Forum's New Works Festival. She is currently the resident dramaturg of The American Slavery Project's Unheard Voices, the Director of Literary Programs at The Classical Theatre of Harlem, and founder of All Creative Writes, an artistic assistance service designed to provide individual artists and performing arts organizations with administrative, fundraising and writing support. Ms. Graham holds degrees from the California State University, Los Angeles and the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She joined The Field in 2012 and lives in Bronx, NY.